Mongolia and Latvia Held Official Talks

After the reception, President of Mongolia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj and President of the Republic of Latvia Andris Bērziņš conducted bilateral official talks at the Government Palace.

At the official talks, President Elbegdorj noted: “I extend my warm greetings to Your Excellency Mr. Andris Bērziņš, President of the Republic of Latvia and our dear Latvian friends, welcome to Mongolia. We are confident that this high level visit of the Head of State of the Republic of Latvia will give strong impetus to our bilateral relations and cooperation and will mark a new page in the history of our friendship.
Following the democratic reforms in early 1990s, Mongolia faced new task to re-define our foreign policies and we adopted multi-pillar foreign policies. The current visit of Your Excellency to Mongolia is being within the concepts of the multi-pillar foreign policy. And we do believe that it will promote open, mutually beneficial relations and cooperation between our two countries.

We regard Latvia as our close friend in the Europe and the European Union. Mongolia aims at developing close cooperation with the EU and its member states. Latvia as a close friend of Mongolia has been attaching high significance to our bilateral relations. Last year, Mongolia has signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union. And I would like to thank Latvia for the prompt ratification of the Agreement as one of the first member states of the European Union. Once ratified, the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement will open plenty new opportunities for cooperation between our two countries and the European Union at large.

As Latvia will take over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from January 1, 2015, Mongolia expects the support of Latvia at crucial period of starting the PCA implementation”.

In response, President of Latvia Andris Bērziņš said: “Your Excellency Mr. President Elbegdorj, Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are very glad to be here in your country. Only few of us visited Mongolia and have experience of visiting your country. We have quite big delegation, but really interested in visiting Mongolia. This is very clear signal that we have bright future in our relations. We have wide range of interests to cooperate with Mongolia, particularly in political and economic sector. To speed up our cooperation, we have to concentrate on the fields of culture and education.

Since the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1991, two countries have maintained positive relations. I would like to stress the importance of our common peacekeeping activities in Afghanistan and your active participation in the different peacekeeping missions. From our side I can promise that Latvia is a reliable partner in all fields.
I hope that our two days visit will give vital impulse in the relations of the two countries. We have ample opportunities to cooperate in the agriculture and forestry. Almost 60 percent of our country’s territory is covered by forest and we have wide experience in forestry to share with Mongolia. Also, fishery products of Latvia are very famous in the world. During our visit to Mongolia, I hope that we could create more opportunities for cooperation. Thank you for your initiative and invitation to come and visit Mongolia”.